Meanwhile, in the U.S. …

We know that Quebec is blessed by the gods: her politicians are almost never handcuffed. U.S. politicians are not so lucky (or clean); the FBI regularly arrests elected officials for crimes of corruption. Ralph Marra, a former federal district attorney, has spent his entire life prosecuting corrupt public officials.

“My first case was pretty typical,” he says in an interview. “A supplier of goods would give a 10 percent discount to elected officials in exchange for municipal contracts.”

Over the phone, in his office at the New Jersey Sports and Exhibition Authority, where he recently became vice president of legal affairs, I sense the deep disdain that Ralph Marra has for “public officials” who dare to solicit an exchange of money for influence over decisions or contracts.

“Listen, there’s no excuse! They have no right to that money. It’s a betrayal of their relationship with the public. If there’s a dilemma, it is on the part of the suppliers who are told that they have to pay, whether it’s with bribes or discounts, in order to do business with a public institution.”

Over the years, Ralph Marra has prosecuted, after FBI investigations, the mayor of Newark (the largest city in the state), the mayor of Hoboken, the female vice-mayor of Jersey City, a judge who promised women that he would eliminate the findings related to their offenses in exchange for sexual favors, a former senator of the legislative assembly who had used his influence for a hospital seeking state funding … In short, Ralph Marra has spent his career chasing thieves.

In 2009, after seven years of investigating cases involving bribes and kickbacks paid to public officials, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) of New Jersey announced the arrest of 60 individuals as part of Operation Bid Rig. Half the people who were handcuffed by the FBI were civil servants or politicians, mayors, city councilors and state senators.

Even in a state like New Jersey, a subscriber to scandals of this kind, nicknamed “The Soprano State” after the television series, Operation Bid Rig has shocked the public. It was Ralph Marra, during the summer of 2009, who explained to the citizens the extent of the scams revealed by the operation.

“There are several ways to catch corrupt politicians and public officials,” says Ralph Marra. “We can launch an investigation on a tip-off, we can go dig around in the internal documentation of a city, university or county. But one of the best investigative tools is still an informant.”

“For Bid Rig, we had an inside agent, someone whom we had arrested for another criminal case. He said he had contact with public officials willing to accept money. He agreed to cooperate in order to receive a lesser sentence.”

Thus, the FBI was able to film exchanges between the informant and public representatives. Specific requests were recorded. Exchanges of money were immortalized without the knowledge of the corrupt government officials.

“The best proof is always to get it on audio or video! It’s the strongest proof we can offer in court: Put the acts of the accused right in front of them.”

One of the constants in the corrupt cases that prosecutor Marra has been handling for 25 years is the use of cash. “In the affairs of a city, county or state, cash is always suspicious,” he says.

“It’s extremely suspicious. I can’t think of a single situation involving cash that wouldn’t be suspicious. There is no reason to ask for cash, to pay in cash. People who use cash are hoping for one thing: to not leave any traces. It is THE way to not leave any traces.”

His best advice, if any elected official asks you for money in exchange for smoothing over your dealings with a public institution:

“Call the police. Corruption is like a weed in the garden. You have to uproot it.”

What I’ve learned from my conversation with Ralph Marra is that in the United States, there is a political will to track down the bastards who work in the public sector just to fill their pockets.

“What’s crucial,” Mr. Marra believes, “is that here in the United States, the USAO has a division devoted entirely to corruption among public officials. The FBI too. We’ve developed a kind of specialized expertise, we share information. People who work to combat this kind of corruption do so because it’s their calling, I would say.”

That may be why our southern neighbors don’t see an elected official in handcuffs as something out of science fiction. Is the system perfect? No. But the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office have institutionalized the fight against bad apples.

But hey, that’s in the States! Fortunately, in Quebec, our virginal political morals make it so that, in order to monitor public officials, all we need is a police squad, hastily put together in the wake of revelations by likely sensationalist media. …

Editor’s note: The quotations in this article, accurately translated, could not be verified.